Follow Friday: Troy newspaper clippings

I’m not sure why they collected them in the first place, but I’m really grateful to the long-ago employees of the Burden Iron Works in Troy, N.Y. who amassed a treasure trove of newspaper clippings.

The volunteers of the Troy Irish Genealogy Society have indexed marriage and death notices from this clippings collection. It was here that I found the April 1892 death notice for my great-great-grandmother, Mary Haigney, wife of Martin. It not only pinpointed the dates of her death and funeral; it gave the address where the family was living at the time.

Indexed by last name, the clippings are a cinch to search and a wonderful resource to check out if you have family connections to Troy — whether or not they worked at Burden. For instance, I haven’t yet found evidence that anyone from my family was employed at the ironworks. (Although someone may eventually turn up, since Burden was a major economic player in Troy.) But the death notice was there, luckily for me.

Quick update: I should add that this database was also instrumental in helping me make progress with one of my big brick walls — figuring out where my great-grandfather Joseph (Mary’s son) was in 1900. I wrote about it here.